The sonorous drift of four trombones, like gentle waves lapping at the edge of a celestial shoreline, opens Craig Kupka's second album for Folkways, Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2. Featuring two side-long compositions for trombone and synthesizer, the album is intended as an aid for meditation, a guided journey inward towards self-discovery. Before it's original release in 1982, Kupka and his wife Nancy took these recordings to relaxation classes and dance studios, field-testing them with participants primed for a meditative experience, and received extensive positive feedback. Like works by contemporaries Michael Stearns, Iasos, and Steve Roach, this is healing music that opens the outer reaches of the mind.
